Arctic ice ‘grew by a third’ in 2013, trend continued in 2014

The volume of Arctic sea ice increased by around a third after an unusually cool summer in 2013. Researchers say the growth continued in 2014 and more than compensated for losses recorded in the three previous years.

The scientists involved believe changes in summer temperatures have greater impacts on ice than thought. But they say 2013 was a one-off and that climate change will continue to shrink the ice in the decades ahead.

Talkshop comment: ‘they say’…based on what evidence?

Turn up the volume

The Arctic region has warmed more than most other parts of the planet over the past 30 years. Satellite observations have documented a decrease of around 40% in the extent of sea ice cover in the Arctic since 1980.

But while the extent of the retreating ice has been well recorded, the key indicator that scientists want to understand is the loss of sea ice volume. Researchers have been able to use data gathered by Europe’s Cryosat satellite over the past five years to answer this question.

This polar monitoring spacecraft has a sophisticated radar system that allows scientists to accurately estimate the volume. The researchers used 88 million measurements of sea ice thickness from Cyrosat and found that between 2010 and 2012, the volume of sea ice went down by 14%.

They published their initial findings at the end of 2013 – but have now refined and updated them to include data from 2014 as well. Relative to the average of the period between 2010 and 2012, the scientists found that there was a 33% increase in sea ice volume in 2013, while in 2014 there was still a quarter more sea ice than there was between 2010-2012.

“We looked at various climate forcing factors, we looked at the snow loading, we looked at wind convergence and the melt season length of the previous summer,” lead author Rachel Tilling told BBC News.

“We found that the the highest correlation by far was with the melt season length – and over the summer of 2013, it was the coolest of the five years we have seen, and we believe that’s why there was more multi-year ice left at the end of summer.”

Chicken Licken (owned by one J Hansen) has only postponed the skies demise. The same is true of the dirty, rotten, filthy ice piling up against Canada . Therefore the statement that CC will blow torch it stands – because the theory predicts blowtorches and what is a lack of blowtorches when you have a swanky theory that pays the bills and keeps the piggy troughs overflowing? – the dates have therefore been recalculated a little bit (flycasting for more suckers before the ponzi totally collapses?) merely postponing End Times… which are still coming…soon…;)http://mobile.twitter.com/CraigM350/status/623229318618025984/photo/1

‘It has been noticed before that the minimum extent of Arctic ice extent hasn’t been changing very much in the past few years leading some to speculate about a so-called ice pause. In fact, a close look at the Arctic ice extent shows that since 1998 it has been pausing more than it has been declining.’

‘In a major report last year, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change gave a grave assessment of how man-made global warming was rapidly destroying the Arctic ice cap.

Steadily increasing temperatures had made the pack ice contract by up to 12 per cent between 1979 and 2012, leading to rising sea levels which threatened to swamp coastal regions – not to mention endangering stranded polar bears.

By the middle of the century ‘a nearly ice-free Arctic Ocean’ was likely for a large part of the year, the report predicted.

How interesting then, that the latest analysis of 88million measurements from the European Space Agency’s Cryosat satellite show the northern ice-cap INCREASED by a staggering 41 per cent in 2013 and, despite a modest shortage last year, is bigger than at any time for decades.

Of course, the climatologists will come up with explanations – as they did for the fact that global temperatures have barely changed since the year 2000.

They’ll say 2013 was a freak year, that in spite of temporary fluctuations long-term trends remain the same, that cooling ‘episodes’ are as much a feature of climate change as warming and so on.

But the more they juggle their theories to fit the inconvenient truths, the more the public will question whether these prophesies of global doom are based on genuine science, or guesswork.

And they will rightly wonder whether solemnly committing to climate change targets while saddling ordinary people with a raft of spurious green taxes serves any real purpose – other than being an expensive exercise in gesture politics.’ [bold added]

‘…it just isn’t happening. In recent years there has been more polar ice in the world than at any time since satellite records began in 1979. In the very year they had forecast that the Arctic would be “ice free”, its thickness increased by a third. Polar bear numbers are rising, not falling. Temperatures in Greenland have shown no increase for decades.’